Russell Eats Crow Over BAFTA Blowup

Mon., Mar. 4, 2002 2:15 PM PST by Josh Grossberg

If all it took was a couple of pints to settle the matter, why didn't he just say so?

Regretting the hell he unleashed last week over his now infamous poetry diss, Russell Crowe apologized to the British television producer the actor accosted after last week's British Academy Film Awards.

Crowe telephoned producer Malcolm Gerrie over the weekend to say he was sorry for his temper tantrum and even offered to buy Gerrie a pint the next time he was in town, a spokesman for Gerrie's production company confirmed.

"He said his language had been excessive and yes, he was still a bit sore [that his acceptance speech had been nixed] but he understood that Malcolm had a job to do," the spokesman tells Reuters.

Crowe's about-face comes days after he publicly shoved and berated Gerrie at an after-party following the BAFTAs--Britain's equivalent to the Oscars.

The 37-year-old actor had won the BAFTA for Best Actor for his role as schizophrenic mathematician John Nash in the critically acclaimed A Beautiful Mind. During his acceptance speech, he read a piece called "Sanctity" (by the late Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh).

Due to time restrictions, however, the poetry reading was trimmed from the BBC's tape-delayed broadcast. Crowe mistakenly believed Gerrie was the one with the scissors, and the notoriously short-tempered actor went on the warpath.

Crowe tracked Gerrie, 51, down at a post-awards dinner at London's Grosvenor House Hotel, shoved the producer against a wall and berated him as a "f---ing piece of s---."

"I don't give a f--- who you are," Crowe reportedly said. "Who on earth had the f------ audacity to take out the Best Actor's poem?"

Although the actor was initially unrepentant during interviews the following day, he apparently had a change of heart, and extended the olive branch in a 20-minute phone call to Gerrie on Saturday morning.

"My language was excessive because I was livid [and] I behaved inappropriately. I was overreacting because I felt passionately about it at the time," London's Sun newspaper quoted Crowe as saying.

According to several Oscar pundits, Crowe's outburst came at the worst possible time--Academy voters received their ballets the day the news of Crowe's attack broke, and many Industry insiders believe the bad press may have pushed Denzel Washington ahead in the Best Actor race.

In fact, the BAFTA brouhaha was the latest misstep by Crowe. He also recently turned down a Silver Heart Award from the Variety Club, a British charity, because Joan Collins had snagged the same honor the previous year.

For his part, Gerrie seemd to accept Crowe's mea culpa. "I told him I didn't get any satisfaction out of the whole situation, and if he wanted to make it up to any of my family he could speak to my son," Gerrie tells the Sun. "He then spoke to [my son] Oliver for about 15 minutes an told him all about the making of Gladiator and what it was like working with real tigers. Oliver was thrilled."

Crowe then suggested to Gerrie that they further make amends by getting together for a couple of drinks.

"He said we should go out for a few pints of Guinness when he was next there," said Gerrie. "I said, 'I know a great pub in Brentford where we could have a few quiet pints.' I couldn't believe it--it was a total contrast to how he had reacted the week before. It was like black and white. He sounded so humble and genuinely apologetic."